Tequila Cowboy's Lansing Mall location is closing

LANSING - The Lansing Mall is poised to lose another tenant next month.

Just over three years after opening there, Tequila Cowboy Bar & Grill and will close its doors next month.

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Overdrive, a new bar and entertainment venue, is expected to open in a space previously occupied by Tequila Cowboy Bar & Grill at the Lansing Mall in August.(Photo: Rachel Greco/Lansing State Journal)

The restaurant and entertainment venue will close April 2, said Franciska Davey, the company's corporate administrator.

The restaurant's employees were notified about the closure Tuesday, she said. Davey said she did not know how many people are employed at the location.

"The store has just not been profitable for us," Davey said Wednesday. "It's just a standard business decision."

Tequila Cowboy opened its location in the Lansing Mall in the fall of 2015, in a space near Regal Cinemas that had been previously designated for a Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill, but which never opened.

Tequila Cowboy is part of the TC Restaurant Group. The Ohio-based company owns several restaurant chains, including Jason Aldean's Kitchen & Rooftop Bar, Crazy Town Nashville, Luigi's City Pizza and Tequila Cowboy. According to the company's website, the Lansing location is one of four Tequila Cowboy locations, including Nashville, Tennessee, Columbus, Ohio and Pittsburgh.

Wednesday afternoon the restaurant announced the closure with a post on its Facebook page. In part it read, "Throughout our years in Lansing, we’ve had an extraordinary group of employees that have displayed hard work, loyalty and dedication. While it is unfortunate that we’ll be ceasing operations, we’ve provided a comprehensive severance package to all of our current employees, that we believe exceeds industry standards."

A message was left with Lansing Mall management Wednesday morning.

Tequila Cowboy is only the latest in a string of store closure's at the mall. Macy's closed its location there in 2017, and Younkers shuttered its store there last year. Both spaces are still empty.

Delta Township Supervisor Ken Fletcher said Wednesday morning that he'd seen social media posts about the impending closure.

When Tequila Cowboy opened there in late 2015, Fletcher said the hope was that it would attract more entertainment venues to the mall.

Fletcher said mall management had informed them recently that the restaurant's lease renewal was being negotiated, but never told them about the closure.

"This is not going to be good for the mall at all," he said. "It's going to leave a void."

J.D. Larner, 40, has been a disc jockey at the restaurant four nights a week for three years. He said a restaurant manager called him about the closure Tuesday. He was surprised, and saddened he said, but understands the company's decision.